So I had until today been thinking the Steam Deck would be the Switch for PC gaming. Then I saw this twitter thread:
Here’s the #steamdeck next to the Switch OLED. pic.twitter.com/kbGF9exbe0
— Cary Golomb (@carygolomb) February 4, 2022
It shows size comparison of Steam Deck versus many portable systems. And my god the thing looks terrible. Switch was pushing the size limit for what a portable can be, I can't imagine wanting to play anything much larger than it, and the Steam Deck makes the Switch look tiny.
A telling comparison in that twitter thread is the pic of the Wii U tablet. The Steam Deck is a little less tall but is much wider. That's insane. The Wii U tablet was absurdly big and was still only designed for use in the house, not as a true portable thing obviously since it needs to be near the system. And the Steam Deck is larger than it!
Not only is it wayyy too big to be a portable system, but its dpad and buttons seem to be falling off the edge, so even with how big it is the layout looks cramped and poorly designed - looks like they needed to make it an inch wider than it already is!
I mean I guess it needs to be so enormous in order to have the power to play modern games, but damn it looks bad.
Seems like Valve was basically like hey Switch is awesome let's make a much much worse version of that for PC gaming.
Before today I thought the Steam Deck looked really cool but I just lost all interest in it, that thing is a monstrosity. I wonder how the terrible design will affect sales. Will it be successful or will most PC gamers just be like well if you're gonna have something that big you may as well just stick to a PC and a gamepad?
